Excising a Dysmorphia Demon

This one is some deep shit... if you came to laugh, today is not for you.  I contemplated not posting this.  Then I thought... FUCK IT this is MY blog!  I don’t mind people knowing who I am and what I think.  So... if you choose to move ahead.  Hold on.  This one hurts...

I feel like an ocean of panic; an ebb and flow of fear as consistent as the tides.  I’m worried about this surgery.... I’m more worried about what’s leading me to it and where it will go from there.

I’m well aware I have a dysmorphia issue.  What I see in the mirror is not representative of what the rest of the world experiences in my presence.  I find my reflection an assault on the eyes.  I see an ugly monster.  I see obesity.  I’m choosing to intervene on a portion of that vision in order to find long overdue acceptance.  But I’m a realist...

Since I was a small child I can remember the deep seeded hate that I felt toward my body, mainly my stomach.  I’ve tried unsuccessfully to short circuit the emotional pain emanating from it.  The only time that I have loved and cherished this piece of flesh was when I carried my son.  I wish I could find that love for it now... it was his vessel into this world.  Instead, the moment he was given the space to breathe his own air... I once again saw it as a malignancy; something to be hated.  Now that it’s surgical removal is imminent... I can feel the malignancy traveling elsewhere; finding a new target to hate and obsess over.  Last week’s phone call to the doctor’s office, the agreement to move forward, created a shift.  Since setting the date to go under the knife, I’ve felt the dark cloud shift.  The malignancy stretched and grew... uprooted itself and locked in on a new target.  An area that is not being modified is set to take the emotional wrath of something deep, something angry, that still lingers trapped inside of me.  I’m fascinated by this awareness but yet have no control over the irrational response when I find myself once again going under in a sea of self loathing.  

The neuroses I experience and manage every day are far louder than those around me encounter.  I try to hush the dysmorphia noise by exercising but no matter what I do I merely tire it temporarily, I never exhaust it into submission.  Oh, what I wouldn’t give to silence the beast that that has tormented a large portion of my existence.  

I now know that removing this flesh will not attenuate the problem.  What I’m looking forward to is waking up one morning, after 34 years and loving my tummy.  Not awaking to a fanny pack of lard that is a reminder of a misfortune of genetics.  I want to put on jeans without a floodgate of tears unleashing years of repressed angst. 

So this, my friends, is the initial reason for seeking cosmetic surgery.  I would like to silence this misguided orchestra that’s playing a disorganized symphony of dysmorphia.  I’m now recognizing that I need to find the space to allow peace and acceptance into the limited time I have left in this shape.  I want to approach this surgery with love for the alteration, with love for the years of health I have been afforded and will continue to have.  I do hope, in releasing these words into an environment of unpredictable eyes that this post... this vulnerability, will reach someone else with the same suffering and they too will try to find a moment to accept and love with or without surgical intervention.  

Underneath a facade of sarcasm lives something troubled.  I hope by releasing this blog (and potentially disappointing those looking for a laugh) a small portion of my ‘issue’ will break free, piercing a festering wound and initiating some healing.  Catharsis... Here I come!

I guess this is now bipolar Ashley.... who knows if you’ll be crying or laughing when you sign up for this blog!  Geez, I exhaust myself.  =D